Absolute rage kac-14

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  "Right. And who told you to collect the givebacks?"

  "Oh, that was Mr. Floyd. He's the business manager."

  "And you handed the money to him? It came to what?"

  "Seventy-five hundred, all told. Uh-huh, and I gave it to him it must've been a Friday, because the checks always go out on Friday and I recall it took a whole week to collect from all those old boys."

  "Did he say what he wanted it for?"

  "Uh-huh. The basement in the union hall needed sealing and the guy was going to give us a break on the job for cash. Oh, and the rats, too."

  "Rats."

  "Uh-huh. Rats in the basement. He said it was for an exterminator."

  "Thank you, Mr. Whelan," said Karp.

  Whistles, cheers, hoots of laughter, filled the Burroughs Building when Karp played the tape for the assembled team.

  "No further questions, Your Honor," said Marlene.

  "Yes," said Karp, "I have had many golden moments in court, but this is going to have a special place in the scrapbook."

  "I want to be a fly on the wall," said Stan Hawes, "when Seward gets this stuff. He'll want to deal."

  "Oh, he may want to," said Karp obliquely. Hawes met his eye, then looked away. They had an unvoiced understanding. Hawes would do most of the trial work and get the credit and front to the press, but Karp would decide the major strategic moves. Karp could see that Hawes still bore a trace of resentment about this, but Karp was careful not to rub his face in it, and Hawes had enough sense not to bring the subtle hierarchy into the public gaze. There was a little eye action with Cheryl Oggert, too, Karp noted. Maybe Stan manipulating around the edges? Who knew? thought Karp; who cared?

  "Well, it looks like the police part of the operation's just about over," said Hendricks. "I guess the governor's going to be happy about that."

  "Yes, he will," Oggert agreed. "I get a call from his budget people every other day. It's like we're going to have to close the schools if Robbens County keeps draining resources. I told them you'd be able to release everyone back to normal duty as of the end of this week."

  "This is wise?" asked Karp. "We don't want to depend on the sheriff too much."

  "We won't," said Hendricks. "We'll keep the detectives, and we'll still keep priority at the lab. But we don't need thirty-six troopers anymore. What I mean is, we already arrested all the bad guys."

  "Your show, Wade," said Karp. "I just work here."

  Three days later, after the defense had perused the Whelan testimony, and after some remarkable findings had come in from the state laboratory, and after Wayne Cade had been transferred to the jail, still refusing to talk to anyone, including his state-appointed lawyer, a call came in from Floyd's attorney, Milton Seward, asking Hawes for a meeting. Karp insisted it be held in the makeshift conference room in the Burroughs Building, rather than in Hawes's office in the courthouse. When the state's attorney expressed annoyance at this, Karp explained, "I'm the bad guy, Stan. Let me be the bad guy, with the meet in the bad guy's castle. They still think you're a patsy. I don't want them to discover you're not until George is sitting at his trial. It'll be a Clark Kent moment for you."

  "This is how they do things in New York?" said Hawes grumpily.

  "Yeah, it is, and, you know, people around here ask me that a lot, I notice. It seems to be polite code for 'Is that some kind of Jew trick?' Answer: yes, it is. So, when we go in on this, I'm going to ask you not to contribute anything. I want you just to sit there and look uncomfortable."

  "Well, hell, that won't be hard," said Hawes sourly.

  Milton Seward was known as the Sewer among the members of the West Virginia bar, both because of his frequent use of salty language and because one of his first major cases had been the successful defense of a group of speculating contractors and councilmen accused of rigging bids for the construction of the Wheeling waste-water treatment system. He was arguably the state's premier defense lawyer at the time, a status to which he frequently adverted.

  When he arrived, with his client in tow, Karp again noted that of the two canonical premier defense-lawyer personae-(1) slick, pinstriped $2,500 suits, French cuffs, handmade shoes, $200 haircuts; (2) custommade, monogrammed cowboy boots, cattleman suits, funny Stetsons, sideburns, lots of heavy jewelry-the Sewer had chosen the latter. Waal, Ah'm jest a shit-kickin' good ole country boy who made good: that was the message. Karp thought that the people who chose (2) did so because they were generally short little fucks and the cowboy boots gave them as much as three inches.

  "What the hell you tryin' to pull with this goddamn horseshit, Karp?" was the Sewer's opening gambit.

  "What goddamn horseshit would you be referring to, Mr. Seward?" Karp inquired.

  The Sewer flung a sheaf of bound paper on the table. "This. This Whelan so-called testimony. You can't use this."

  "And why not?"

  "Because the whole fucking thing is a tissue of lies coerced under pressure, plus declarant is a mental incompetent. Jordan Whelan has an eighty-six IQ."

  "Making him smart enough to be a bagman for your client, but not so smart that he'd ask a lot of questions. His testimony, which was in no way coerced, a fact we can demonstrate without a peradventure of a doubt, is amply confirmed by the testimony of a number, fifteen to be precise, of union pensioners, each of whom received a thousand-dollar fee for so-called research, half of which fee was given back to Mr. Whelan, who then gave it to your client, who gave it to the three Cade boys, for which remuneration they murdered the Heeney family."

  Seward chuckled, as if Karp had told an amusing joke. George tried to paste a smile on his face, but it came out like the grimace of a man who had just bitten down on a bad oyster. "Well, Lord fuck a duck, you New York boys sure can come up with the stories. You know as well as I do that there is no way on God's earth you can connect that union money with whatever money, if any, got passed to the alleged murderers. It's all fuckin' smoke, Karp."

  "Not quite smoke, Mr. Seward. I wouldn't call DNA evidence smoke."

  "What the fuck are you talking about, DNA?"

  "Gosh, Stan, didn't we turn that over yet? Well, it just came in from Charleston last night." Karp handed a thin manila envelope across the desk. Seward made no move to pick it up.

  "It turns out that little Bo Cade had five twenties left from that payoff when he was arrested. Did you know that your client has a habit of licking his thumb when he peels money off a roll? Well, he does. I observed him doing it myself. And when we took a close look at those twenties, we found some saliva traces on the bills. And there was enough cellular material in the saliva traces to give us DNA lines. It's amazing what they can do with tiny little bits of organic material today. I guess your client, being an honest fellow, hasn't kept up with the very latest in criminalistics. Now, we haven't matched that DNA with anyone yet, but since you look like a betting man, Mr. Seward, with that fancy outfit, I'd like to bet you, say, a thousand dollars that we get a match off your client there. What do you say?"

  "Ah, that don't mean shit," Seward exclaimed. "Fifty different people could've touched one of those bills."

  "All the bills," said Karp. "Same traces on all five bills." There was a brief, delicious silence.

  Then Floyd leaned over and whispered something in his lawyer's ear. The lawyer whispered something back. Karp loved to see whispered consultations like this. It was so hard for even experienced rogues to get their lies straight on short notice.

  "Not admitting anything at all at this time," said Seward, "but my client directs me to discuss the possibility that other individuals were involved in plotting these murders."

  "For example?"

  "Other individuals, an individual associated with the union. At the highest level. Suppose we were to say that this individual was the prime originator of the murder plot, who made the money available, who directed the murders, who used my client's good offices as an unwitting intermediary."

  "You're talking about a plea in exchange for testimony
, are you?"

  "Well, what the fuck do you think I'm talking about? I'd like to know what your position would be on that?"

  "My position on that would be that if your client pleads guilty to the top count of the indictment, murder in the first degree, and if he testifies to the material involvement of Lester Weames, we will place that fact into the cognizance of the sentencing judge."

  "You're fucking joking." Seward had a face made up of semispherical units, not unlike that of W. C. Fields-little round nose, little round chin, full cheeks-and now all these turned rosy.

  "I am deadly serious."

  Seward looked at Hawes. "Stan, what the fuck… are you gonna sit there and let him get away with this? I mean, are you the goddamn state's attorney here, or what?"

  Hawes said nothing. Seward turned on Karp again. "Okay, then listen to me, Mr. New York! You got a lot of horseshit, is what you got. I don't give a fuck what kind of DNA trickology, what kind of lying testimony from a bunch of no-account hillbillies, you bring into court, I will personally guarantee you that no Robbens County jury is gonna convict George C. Floyd for these murders." He stood up. "Let's go, George. We're done here."

  "He might have a point," said Hawes. "Those citizens who don't think George Floyd is man of the year are scared silly of him."

  "You're thinking change of venue?"

  "It's worth a look."

  "No, it's not. The whole point of this exercise is to bring justice to this county. Justice has to be done in this place, and seen to be done. If we have to run somewhere else, it's not the win we need."

  "We could lose."

  "Bite your tongue, and cheer the fuck up, Hawes. We are going to pull George C. Floyd's shorts down in open court and whip his heinie for him."

  They walked out into the main suite. Harkness seemed to be the only one at a desk. The chair Marlene usually occupied was empty.

  "Where's Marlene?" Karp asked.

  "Oh, she's gone. She got a phone call and just dropped everything and ran off like her hair was on fire. She said to tell you she was going to the city, but she didn't say which one."

  Karp knew which one. He learned the rest of the story early that afternoon, when Lucy showed up at the office.

  "Mom called me," said Lucy. "Billy called her here and said that Jeb had got off the property and bit Mrs. Winchell next door. She got the truck out of the shop, drove herself to Charleston, and got a plane back to the City through Pittsburgh."

  "Oh, Christ! There goes the college fund. Was the old lady badly hurt?"

  "Oh, no. She wasn't like attacked. According to Billy, Jeb just likes to roam, and he roamed into Mrs. Winchell's backyard, and her Scottie dog went for him, which of course Jeb ignored, and then Mrs. Winchell came out and tried to shoo him off with her cane, and I guess that constituted assault with a weapon in his dog mind, and he gave her a nip on the hand. Really it wasn't his fault."

  "Uh-huh, and I bet your mom will be making just that argument in front of a judge and a contingency-fee lawyer who's already picking out the color of the Rolls. Why did she call you and not me?"

  "Sheer mortification, since you were always going on about something like this happening and ruining us. Also, she wanted me to collect Gog. I'll be watching both of them at Dan's place with the boys. The boys are in paradise. We're going huntin' 'n' fishin' this afternoon. I figured you didn't need to worry about them while you're involved here."

  Karp raised an eyebrow. "You're, um, planning on staying there, huh? Setting up light housekeeping?"

  "Yes, and what you mean by that is, are you sleeping with him? What do you think?"

  He studied the ceiling tiles. "Your mom thinks it's unbridled teen lust out there."

  "Yes, I know. It's sort of gross when your mom leers at you, nudgenudge, wink-wink, and I wish she'd cut it out. The problem is she's been preparing practically her whole life to be the understanding and helpful mom of a gorgeous lust bucket like she was when she was my age, and what she gets is virginal me, floating slightly above the ground. It must be quite vexing." Lucy paused and gave him one of her deep looks. "You really don't want the details of my-ha ha!-sex life, do you?"

  "No. As long as you're okay."

  "I'm okay." She smiled. He recalled that she was smiling a lot more nowadays, not the dry and sardonic smile she had formerly affected, but a real grin, from which light flared. "I'm actually real good."

  Karp watched her walk out. Floating, yes. She had a bounce in her step that he had not noticed before. He hoped it was love, although personally he thought that Dan Heeney was not fit to tie the laces of her shoe. After he thought this, he had the good sense to laugh at himself.

  He stuffed a number of documents and scrawled-upon legal pads into a cardboard folder and walked over to the courthouse. There for the next several hours he consulted with Stan Hawes about their strategy for the Wayne Cade trial, which amounted to teaching the younger man how to prevail in a high-profile homicide prosecution without seeming to teach him anything. It was subtle and tiring work. Hawes was bright enough to understand he needed help, but he was also a competitive and politically ambitious young lawyer, and his mind was at least partially on the greasy pole rather than totally devoted to the case at hand. Karp had observed this in such lawyers before this. It pissed him off, and he could not afford to be pissed off just then.

  At three, they both went down to the courtroom to answer motions before Judge Bledsoe. Wayne Cade had a public defender, a man named Rob Sawyer. Sawyer had a new blue suit, a law degree nearly as old, and a light trace of acne on his cheeks. The motions were the usual pro formas: exclusion of evidence, deficiencies in the warrant, quash the indictment. Hawes answered them well enough, and Karp thought that Bledsoe would have no problem in deciding all of them in the state's favor. While Hawes was up arguing, Karp noted that young Sawyer was having difficulty attracting his client's attention. His client was more interested, seemingly, in Karp. Karp met his stare, which was predictably malevolent. Then Cade made a choking gesture and bared his teeth in a nasty grin. This was actually quite unusual. Karp had tried people who could eat Wayne Cade for lunch, and typically the really hard boys had no personal animus at all against the people whose job it was to put them in jail. Things were apparently different among the Cades. Karp rolled his eyes and looked somewhere else. He felt embarrassed for young Sawyer.

  After court, Hawes and Karp went back to Hawes's office. Bledsoe had promised to rule the next day and had announced that, without objection, he wanted jury selection to begin the day after. He expected a speedy trial, with no obstructionism.

  At 5:32, they were just about to knock off and go get a bite to eat when they heard a series of popping noises coming from below.

  "Someone's got firecrackers left over from the Fourth," Hawes observed, and was startled when Karp leaped up and ran headlong from the room.

  Dan Heeney had Emmylou Harris playing out of his computer speakers, "Sweet Dreams" the song. He was lying on his bed watching Lucy Karp lip-synch the song and play air-guitar accompaniment. That Lucy liked Emmylou Harris seemed to him the final benediction on the relationship. For her part, Lucy was not conscious of ever having heard Ms. Harris before arriving in West Virginia, being in the main a world-music sort of girl. She had decided, however, that country was actually world music from the United States. And she actually spent a good deal of time gyrating and lip-synching, in a dozen tongues, in the privacy of her room. That she was now doing it in front of a boy was to her mind a greater intimacy, almost, than getting naked.

  The song ended; he applauded; she took a modest bow.

  "Can you actually play anything?"

  "No, not a thing. My mom tried to teach me guitar-she's good at it-but I could barely get through the first two bars of 'Go Tell Aunt Rhody.' I have perfect pitch, of course, but I could never figure out how to read music. A tragedy, huh?"

  "I can play the banjo."

  "You can? Oh, play something!"

  "I migh
t later, if you're good. You know, you look a little like Emmylou Harris used to."

  She sputtered out a startled laugh. "Oh, yeah, I get that all the time. People stop me in the street. Except for…" She grabbed up the CD and consulted the face thereon. "She has shining, perfectly straight raven locks and I have curly brown fuzz not unlike pubic hair. She has razorsharp cheekbones; mine are barely visible. She has a cute little absolutely straight nose; I have a hideous contorted bassoon; she has lush red lips; I have thin pale objects that resemble stretched rubber bands reaching nearly to my ears. She has a broad, noble brow; mine slopes backward like that of early man. She has huge, lustrous dark eyes; mine are tiny and resemble dog poo in color. Aside from that, we could be twin sisters." She grinned at him, put a hand on her hip, cocked it, and said, "You must be in love, me bucko."

  He slid away from that one, saying, "I hate it when you dis yourself like that. You have unbelievably beautiful eyes."

  She nodded and batted the mentioned units ostentatiously. "Yes, I do. It's my pathetic one good feature, and I'm proud as Lucifer of them, God forgive me." She flopped next to him on the bed.

  "Do you always tell the truth like that?" he asked.

  "Uh-huh. I never lie, but the truth is not for everyone. My mom says that a lot, when lying. But I think I'm beginning to see what she means."

  "I like your mouth, too."

  "Unfashionably slitlike though it is?"

  He was demonstrating how much he liked it when a sound came from just outside the door, from where the two mastiffs had been lying, facing away from each other like a pair of bookends. It came from both dogs, a kind of growling whine. Lucy jumped up, cold sweat breaking out on her face. Another sound now, tires on gravel, the roar of an engine.

  "Get the boys, Dan!"

  He got off the bed. "Why, what's wrong?"

  She ran out of the room, out the front door, confirming what she had feared.

  She ran back to Dan's doorway. "Get the boys! Go, now! Get them and hide in the woods!"

  "What are you talking about?"

  "It's the Cades, a bunch of them. Go out the back!"